A Desi Hunter in the West

Azam Khan sahib I throughly enjoyed your article.

It brought back many memories of hunting quail and fowl with my uncle in Pakistan. Sometimes, he would employ a few beaters to scare the birds out of their hiding places and I was never certain who was more rattled, the birds or the beaters, everytime the shotgun would go off ! My poor aunt used to have a nervous break down and would distribute sweets at the mazar of a local saint every time I returned from the hunt.

My uncle was blind in one eye, but we were never sure which one was it, because he would always claim perfect vision. My mother always used to refer to our hunts as the case of the blind leading the stupid and was always sorry for the birds. It was her firm opinion that any bird we shot down would have been accidential, because uncle must have been aiming for something else ! My dad would always tell me that uncle was a lousy shot and just to irrate him, he would encourage all of us to ask uncle to tell us stories of his sniper days in the army !

This not a joke sir. I have never seen a group of men so relived and glad to be alive as the beaters who used to go out with us. After every shotgun blast, just from seeing the expressions on their faces, their faith in the benelovence of Allah was continually renewed and never questioned.

i should have paid more attention to the disclaimer.
what a colossal waste of time. of course i can`t now `rant rant rave rave` because all readers were forewarned, so i shall just stick to laying a curse on you and hope one day you have a waking dream in which you are shot as you stick your head in the refrigerator or wait in line at a cafeteria counter.

Uh.....yeah
I too, have a big penis ..

regards
RanaRansher

i`m sure we could even find you a real honest to goodness wild animal skin to wrap yourself with as you prance through the forest beating your fists upon your chest and yodelling.
perhaps that`s why its getting turned into a rug?

I kept waiting for something to happen in the story. What a disappointment! You are a hunter and hunted a bear in Canada. So What!

Azam Khan:

Are you for real?

``Gravely concerned,`` really?

Let us have a CHOWK CONSERVATION CENTRE for MCPs.

And the `P` does not stand for the forbidden you-know-what.

I will vote you in, anybody seconding?

Re: Temporal, Godot, Rana Ransher and Slink

Have any of you folks ever hunted ?

Re: Ferozk, Reply 7

What difference does it make if I have hunted or not? The story has no point. It is akin to you writing a story of taking a cab home. You hailed a cab, got in it, gave directions to the cabbie, got to the destination, and paid the fare! Well, what`s the point? What is so interesting about it? What does it matter if I have taken a cab home or not?

Re: RanaRansher, Reply 3

Congratulations.

The blow by blow account of the trip can be helpful perhaps as guide (` How to hunt bear in Canada` would have been an appropriate title), but as someone who was just looking for an interesting read, I read in vain. The title was misleading.

yaar azam, aap bohat brave hain. hunting a vicious bear that was armed with a sub-machine gun shooting back at you. Not everyone could have done that. Oh, no sub-machine gun? Oh, it was sport! Sorry! Carry on then. Hmmm... interesting way of expressing your concern about natural resources, Kill them then put them on your floor. Future generations might not be able to see them in their natural habitat but at least they`ll be able to see what they looked like.

Git.

Even though I despise hunting, I could not help be captivated and read your piece through and through. I understand that others found the article mundane, but still, the hair on my testicles tingled. Something deep inside and foolish triggers in me and says: ``Me caveman, me kill!``

Some felt the story had no point and read on waiting for one. I wonder -- did people expect him to never get a bear and then decide that hunting was as boring as it really is? Or possibly that he would mistakenly kill a mother bear orphaning a small bear cub and then feel so much remorse that he would quit forever?

Aliya:
Yes, the title is somewhat deceiving. It seemed to indicate a possible description of a person who was in hot pursuit of american sexual exploitation. However, you have to admit that it wasn`t specifically misleading advertising. I mean, he is desi, he is hunting, and he is in the West. What a pleasant surprise: an article on the Chowk front page about a topic never before seen there.

My next question is: what kind of sickness actually would allow a person to pull the trigger and kill a bear (not out of self-defense)? I don`t understand hunting and unfortunately, your article didn`t shed any light on the pscyho-pathology I fear exists within all hunters. I mean, is all that effort really worth the mosquite bites and the tacky rug? Somehow, I just don`t believe the piece in the end.

Re: saeed jaffer, Reply 12

Your sarcasm notwithstanding, please, give me a break! There are a lot of desis in the West who have far more interesting stories to tell about their experiences than about taking a cab home.

If this non-story made your pubic hair tingle, do yourself a favor and stay away from Chowk, or you may die.

Re: Aliya, Reply 14

Caveman started hunting to protect himself and also to feed himself. We have, consequently, become meat-eaters. This is okay for us so long as the animal killed takes place in private and we don`t get to see the gore and the blood. I eat meat. But to kill an innocent animal just for the fun of it who has done no harm to you? I don`t think I can bring myself to do that But to protect myself, or to feed myself because there is no other alternative? You bet!

This is beginning to sound a lot like PETA v/s NRA. I have never had the desire to kill animals, and will avoid such spectacle at all cost, yet as a longtime Nihari/ kabab fan, I can not in good conscience chastise the author for killing a non-endangered species.
Re: Saeed Jaffer
Technically speaking, you are right about the title. I guess the article disappointed me mainly because hunting can be an extremely powerful topic for reflection, whether one felt proud, powerful, one with nature or sad, ashamed and hollow. This is why the title is all that important, if this was a concrete sounding ``Guide to Bear Hunting``, one wouldn’t try read it unless they really want to know the technical details of such a trip. The abstract sounding title misled me to believe that their will be some reflections, comments etc.

great read, to those of you who complain so strongly, well do something about it if it bothers you so much. All most of do is talk, atleast the author did something. As far as morality goes, everyone has their own moral views embedded in them through whatever circumstances or friends they hang out with, or the media or education they have recieved. So try to be original somewhat. I think killing a bear and then writing about it is great.

In most parts of the country, and even world, bears have been driven out, by hunting or habitat devastation. Just because an animal is not on the near-extinct list doesn`t mean it is not worthy of protection. Bears are not in such abundance. And a synthetic rug looks and feels just as nice.

Hunting is much more boring than one might think. Just try and read ``Man Eaters of Kumaon`` by Jim Corbett. Its takes thirty pages of waiting before he gets his first sight of the tiger. Guaranteed sleep causer.

If you think that you can parade your disregard for animal life with pomp and show here, don`t think for a moment that those of us who feel strongly about it will mince words either.